


Hands of a Healer

by Saentorine



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Bloodletting, Broken Bones, Brothers, Canon - Book, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood, Corporal Punishment, Depression, Dreams and Nightmares, Falling In Love, Family, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Gondor, Healers, Healing, Illnesses, Medical Procedures, Medieval Medicine, Mental Health Issues, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minas Tirith, Minor Injuries, Parent-Child Relationship, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Siblings, Requited Love, Sick Character, Soldiers, Some Humor, Swords, Trauma, Trouble, Unconsciousness, Underage Drinking, Vomiting, War, War of the Ring, Wine, Young Boromir, Young Faramir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-05-03 10:37:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5287472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saentorine/pseuds/Saentorine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The tales tell that Gondor's true king will have the hands of a healer. Growing up in a perilous time, Faramir experiences firsthand just how desperately Gondor-- and Faramir himself-- could use his healing.</p><p>Starts out as childhood fluff and gets progressively more serious.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Denethor

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Later chapters include description of vomiting and injuries including bleeding, infected wounds, broken bones, fevers, and their treatments.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Denethor is not a particularly comforting father.

_“The hands of the King are the hands of a healer, and so shall the rightful king be known.”_

***

Five year old Faramir lay flat on his back on the floor of his father’s private study, tears leaking freely from his closed eyes. He was still too stunned to move, one arm outstretched towards the book that had been knocked free during his fall, now lying open with rumpled pages on the floor. He heaved in a tremulous sob and shuddered, hoping that Boromir were still in earshot to hear him, before releasing another anguished howl that echoed through the silent halls.

The chambers and corridors of the seventh level were typically silent in those days, the dark months following the death of Finduilas. With the shadow growing to the East had been years since Minas Tirith had been truly lively and gay, but the passing of the gentle steward-queen had cast the city into deeper melancholy and not the least in the private cells of her family.

Since she had passed Faramir and Boromir were typically left long hours to amuse themselves, for outside of their necessary studies Denethor considered it a waste in an austere age to employ someone solely to supervise boys too old for a wet nurse. When their mother yet lived they had spent much leisure in her company, but busy with the work of the stewardship there were days they barely saw their father. Normally the brothers entertained each other, playing at imaginary battles with wooden swords in the windy courtyard of the seventh level. However, as Boromir periodically sought the company of companions his own age, boys who were larger and faster and could be played with more roughly, recently Faramir had begun to spend his solitary time poring over books-- which at first he had only flipped through the pages of in imitation of his father’s meticulous study but one morning discovered with pleasurable surprise that he could decode himself. From there he was insatiable, raiding everything from the citadel library to the shelves of his father’s office and even his desk (a mistake he had made only once). 

Today Faramir had sought a book beyond his reach-- more literally than figuratively, for once he was reading illustrated tales provided to him he was also reading the advanced texts written by scholars and documents that came across his father’s desk (much of which bored him, but he could nonetheless _read_ ). But usually-loyal Boromir had been no ally, refusing to retrieve from a tall bookcase the book that upset him so much the day before. 

Attuned enough to his children's loneliness, Denethor had taken a short respite from his duties the day before to teach his sons the histories of the great kingdoms of Men, reading to them from a large tome on the later kings and early stewards of Gondor, including the lingering prophecy that the heir to the throne would one day return, by some accounts known by the powers of healing in his hands. “ _The hands of the King are the hands of a healer, and so shall the rightful king be known_ ,” Faramir had repeated after one of the serving-women who had indulged him in a tale, seeing how keen he was to absorb lore from any source. Knowing he could read, Denethor directed him to read aloud a passage on the fall of Isuldir. 

Faramir was impressed by the records of Gondor in ages past, when Osgiliath still stood as capital and kin-strife and plague had yet to afflict them, but Boromir was not satisfied to simply gaze back at what had been and inquired at what point a steward might be elevated to king if Isuldir’s heir did not return; would his father ever be king, or Boromir himself? Denethor replied with measured composure that despite their family’s steadfast defense of the kingdom for hundreds of years, with all its ancient lineage Gondor still remembered and waited for the return of its king by blood and would wait ten-thousand years if necessary.

This clearly agitated Boromir, which in turn agitated his father, so Denethor had put away the book on a high shelf and fell silent on the matter. Yet Faramir wanted to know more about the king that was meant to return to Gondor and still mattered so much to their people. The idea that their family might not rule Gondor, in practice or in title, didn’t offend him nearly as much as it did Boromir; surely the reign of a king, as in so many of the stories, would be an era of revelry and song far more gay and glorious than the fortified austerity he knew of his father’s stewardship. He might even welcome his coming, for if the king were there to do his job his father would have more time for him and Boromir.

So Faramir had tried to scale the bookcase to reach his prize himself. However, his balance and coordination had developed in disproportion with his literacy; Faramir lost his footing on the fourth shelf and was unable to correct for it, falling a distance equivalent to his own height and landing sharply on his rear, the momentum tipping him back so that his head smacked hard against the floor.

It was still his instinct to cry for his lost mother, but at least Boromir came when he needed him, rushing in at the sound of the fall and Faramir’s piteous wail that began a moment later when he regained the breath that had been knocked out of him. He scooped him up and quickly inspected him for bleeding or worse, and then led him to their father, whom in those days as throughout his life he was certain in his wisdom could solve all concerns brought before him.

“I was in another room; I didn’t know he was climbing,” Boromir admitted, distressed by Faramir’s anguish and needled by the promises he had made to his mother that he would always watch out for his little brother.

However, Denethor didn’t hold his older son responsible. “What were you doing climbing a bookcase?” he demanded of the small weeping party at his knee. Faramir was surely old enough now to have the sense not to put himself in danger so recklessly. “Are you not responsible enough to consider your own safety? Is it necessary for someone to watch you constantly?”

Now stricken not only by his fall but also his father’s scolding, Faramir was speechless, his lip trembling and eyes continuing to well over with tears.

Denethor sighed in mild exasperation, remembering back to how his wife would have swept the boy up into her arms and soothed him without question until he had calmed. Denethor had cool nerve and nearly endless patience in matters of state and defense, but the early death of Finduilas had left him two children he had little knowledge in caring for and no time to learn. So instead of pulling his younger son up to embrace him on his lap as she would have done, he simply lifted him stiffly into the air, pressed his lips perfunctorily to the top of his head, and set him directly back down on his feet again. When Faramir gaped at him in confusion, he then patted him exactly thrice on the top of his head. 

Faramir cringed, given it was his skull that had cracked so hard against the floor and Denethor had only narrowly missed where it still throbbed. However, at least the strangeness of his father’s awkward attempt at sympathy had distracted him from the pain. Presuming the issue resolved, the Steward sent his sons back out again with a sharp reminder to be more responsible with their own safety. 

Rubbing at the sore spot on his scalp Faramir mused that if the legends were correct that the returning king of Gondor would have the hands of a healer, indeed his father would never be king.


	2. Boromir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Boromir makes Faramir feel better after a punishment . . . but also worse.

Nine year old Faramir lied curled on his side on his bed, sniffling and trying to rein in the tears he had finally released after forcing himself to maintain his composure before his father. He would have liked to be angry at him but was too ashamed of himself to work up the proper sense of resentment; he wept mostly with regret but also in pain, occasionally reaching a timid hand back to inspect the firm welts that were sure to be bruises by the morrow. 

He had just had a hard lesson in duty-- the duty in this case being his lessons with the arms master Denethor had employed to tutor his sons. Although ravenous in all other study, arms was a subject for which he held no passion or diligence. It was not that he was cowardly, though that might have been anyone’s first thought. Nor was he embarrassed by his abilities, for when he was attentive his tutor and brother had nothing but praise for him. It was simply that the endless drills bored and depressed him. Faramir preferred to think of battle as a stanza or two in a long ballad of a great hero’s life, if it were even present at all-- for some of his greatest heroes were kings of peacetime and a traveling wizard-- and he had trouble linking the repetition of parrying, thrusting, slashing, stabbing, blocking, dodging, nocking, and firing to the greater glorious picture of history. 

While Boromir thrived on physical exertion and the rigorous journey of mastering each new technique, the feel of his weapon growing more in-tune with his body and mind every moment, Faramir in turn felt his mind drifting farther and farther away. When his tutor critiqued him Faramir would step aside ostensibly to give himself a moment of solitary practice, absently swinging his practice sword or pulling his bowstring without releasing, but predominantly turning his thoughts to where they held greater interest. When the instructor called him back, sometimes he would pretend not to hear-- and sometimes he truly didn’t. Over time, he gradually succumbed more and more to his preference for daydreaming than the task before him, until eventually he was spending more time at thought than at arms. Without word from Lord Denethor his instructor was hesitant to coerce a son of the steward against his will and Boromir was satisfied to maintain his full attention, so for a period Faramir remained contentedly to the side lost in times and places far removed from the present.

However, on the first day he was so bold as to skip the lesson entirely, intending to escape to the library, he had the misfortune of being discovered by his father, somber and pale as he returned downstairs after another session of long isolated thought in the White Tower. His son’s reluctance in combat lessons had reached his ears by now, but having been too busy with his work even to dine with his children at daymeal he had yet to address the matter. The opportunity now having neatly presented itself, the Steward seized Faramir by the back of the neck and landed several harsh blows on the back of his thighs with the implement conveniently on hand, the very rod of his office he carried with him as he went about his duties. Faramir yelped and whimpered at the bite of the lashes across his legs, but even when his father stopped there was no relief in the sharp glare and reprimand that followed. 

"Surely no son of mine needs chastisement for lapse in duty.” Denethor’s eyes were steely as Faramir bit down on his trembling lip to keep tears from falling. “You are meant to be with your brother at your archery lesson, are you not?”

“I was reading,” Faramir defended meekly, displaying the books he had been carrying as proof. Denethor himself was well-read and studious; surely this was less condemnable than if he’d simply abandoned his lessons to play?

“You have time enough already to read,” Denethor replied without pity. “You have also been commanded to attend these lessons. That I have commanded it should be enough for you to obey, but indeed this is more than a simple matter of disobedience; when you are grown it will be your duty as one of my house and as an able citizen of Gondor to aid in her defense to the best of your capabilities. To fail to prepare diligently for that duty is to rob your country and her people of the best possible odds of survival. Would you have Gondor fall for the sake of pursuing your own purposes rather than devoting yourself in service to her need?”

Faramir hadn’t thought of it that way, of course; the fate of Gondor seemed hardly up to a boy. However, it was no secret to him that one day his place as the Steward’s son would grant him titles and with them, responsibilities-- generally of the martial sort. It would one day be his duty to command soldiers and strategize defense that affected living, breathing people. His father’s words shamed him, especially knowing that Denethor himself sacrificed not only his leisure but even duty to his own family for the sake of the lonely work of the stewardship. 

He offered to return promptly to his lesson with apologies to the instructor, but Denethor could read how desperately his son wished to return to his favor and neatly denied him the mercy of immediate relief. “You have chosen your own way in this; as you care so much more for dreaming, until the morrow you may spend your time now thinking on those your indolence has impacted and how you might attend more diligently to what is expected of you.”

Now obedient to his father’s command Faramir withdrew to his chambers, shaking, sore, and too chastened to return to his reading but much in need of the release of tears. In self-pity he wished he had never been born the son of a ruling steward but as one who might be free to live a gentle life of learning in which he would seldom bear arms-- though he knew that with the Shadow bearing heavily upon them from the East, even the most lowly and remote in Gondor were now thrust into her defense, fleeing into the safety of the cities where they were called upon to train in militias and guards. Strangely it seemed the only party inattentive to Gondor’s need was its own absent king; surely his duty to the kingdom weighed more heavily than anyone’s, and yet he was nowhere to be found. If anyone ought to be rebuked for his lapse in duty!

It was in this state Boromir found him when his lesson had finished. Boromir always was and ever would be persistent when he wished something, and between Faramir’s tearstained face and absence in lessons he would insist on knowing what had happened. He pressed until Faramir miserably recounted his chastisement for irresponsibility, likely within earshot of several citadel councilors and servants. He hoped his brother might counter with a tale of punishment of his own in offering of empathy, but Boromir was either too proud or simply had nothing to share; his own desires were seldom at odds with duty and he came easily into their father’s approval. 

Instead, Boromir simply asked: “Does it still ail you?”

Faramir gave a begrudging nod.

“I know of something that may help.”

Boromir had only recently been deemed old enough to drink undiluted wine at Denethor’s table when they dined together. It was something he especially appreciated when he had been thrown from his horse a few months ago and broken a rib; now he swore alcohol cured all complaints, obviously impressed with himself as a man and soldier who needed only a stiff drink to carry on injured in battle. If Faramir were hurting it was the least he could do to accommodate his recovery.

Faramir returned a skeptical frown; to ease the pain of his punishment seemed contrary to his father’s intentions. Besides, he had tried some weak ale on a few feasting occasions or when the mountain springs and cisterns that supplied the citadel with water were low or contaminated, and was not particularly fond of the bitter flavor. Yet Boromir swore up and down that this would be different. “It is a sweet wine you would never know from fresh-squeezed juice,” he explained. “It is not bitter, nor does it burn. It will ease the pain and renew your spirits in no time.”

Although Faramir only consented with a halfhearted shrug, a short while later Boromir returned with a bottle of dark berry wine, two goblets, and a wild grin, and promptly poured out a portion for both of them.

Boromir had been correct that the wine was barely detectable as such; it tasted scarcely different from the fruit from whence it came. Faramir drank it as readily as water and it was not long before he felt a warm flush spreading over his body, as if he had been seated next to a pleasant fire. Boromir smiled more broadly at his brother’s telling grin and topped off his cup again. 

Larger and more acclimated to its effects, Boromir drank heartily but made sure his brother got his fair share-- since that was the purpose in his acquisition and he was encouraged by his lifted spirits. As he poured more and more Faramir became downright giddy, face flushing red as he giggled into his goblet, occasionally dipping his hair or sloshing down his front.

All too soon the sun began to set, indicating the brothers’ necessary presence at their father’s table for the daymeal. Now that the bottle was empty Faramir was reluctant to rise from bed let alone walk, feeling dizzy and precariously on the edge of nausea, but Boromir insisted that it would not do to miss this duty after being punished for dodging another only hours earlier.

Faramir would ultimately bear no permanent marks from Denthor’s discipline, but as woozy as he was he would never forget how he dizzily tottered down to the main hall only by aid of Boromir’s arm and, already in disgrace after his father’s earlier punishment, promptly spilled the unsettled-- and deeply purple-- contents of his belly onto the floor before the Steward’s chair.

Boromir shielded him from their father’s horrified disgust, taking all blame for both the idea and its execution. Still giddy himself from the wine he had imbibed, his words were so rambling and repetitive that by the end he had even prompted a wry smile from Denethor before he dismissed them to bed without supper but orders to drink at least a gobletful of water first. As far as helpfulness and protectiveness Boromir was an exemplary older brother, to be sure, but as he led him back to his chambers-- where he woke the next morning with a throbbing headache so severe he nearly vomited again, in addition to the bruises on his legs-- Faramir had to admit he did not quite have the instincts for healing as one fated to be king.


	3. Healers of Minas Tirith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Medical care in Gondor isn't bad-- but still leaves something to be desired.

_For though all lore was in these latter days fallen from its fullness of old, the leechcraft of Gondor was still wise, and skilled in the healing of wound and hurt, and all such sickness as east of the Sea mortal men were subject to. Save old age only. For that they had found no cure, and indeed the span of their lives had now waned to little more than that of other men, and those among them who had passed the tale of five score years with vigour were grown few, save in some houses of purer blood._

***

Twelve year old Faramir shifted against the pillows behind his back, wishing they were of a rougher fiber so that they might ease the terrible itching all over his skin. He had not spoken a word but at his fussing the healer hushed him, eyes focused on the thin, clean incision he had just made in the boy’s arm. He raised a squirming black worm from the bowl his attendant held for him and Faramir turned quickly away so that he would not have to watch the imminent stomach-turning process, though he absently lifted the other arm to scratch at a spot on his forehead.

“Scratch not,” his healer reminded him.

“You’ll spoil your looks should you scratch them on your face,” added his attendant-- and a glance at the woman’s own pockmarked flesh was enough to stay Faramir’s hand. He sighed and continued to stare intently at the ceiling, trying to ignore both the eerie throbbing of the leech against his vein as well as the terrible itching all over his skin. 

“If any part of this is the work of the Shadow as your lord father suspects, with all luck we’ll draw the ill humor out soon enough,” the healer assured him, sensing his charge’s uncomfortable impatience.

“And if it’s just pox?” Faramir asked him tentatively, for he would never set himself at odds by posing the question front of his father once the Steward had made up his mind. 

“It will run its course in time.”

A few days before, Faramir had noticed a line of raised red pustules along his hairline. Boromir, who was proudly anticipating his first ride out with a company to scout the road to Ithilien where recent Southron attacks had been reported, congratulated him with a teasing smile on his burgeoning adulthood-- his own transformation from boy into broad-chested, bearded young man had been marked with a similar affliction for a while-- and suggested he simply pop them if they vexed him. Faramir frowned in disgust at the pus they released but soon forgot the matter. 

However, the next morning he woke in horror to vast, itching spread of the same all over his torso, down his arms and legs, and even tucked away in places he was too ashamed to scratch. He felt hot and fatigued and was equivocating on whether he had the strength to rise from bed or simply wait until his absence was noted and someone came to him when Boromir burst nearly hysterical into his room to reveal his face (at least) had broken out as well.

Word was sent to Boromir’s company to set out without him and to take caution of the spread of pox, which would blast like wildfire through the ranks if any others had caught it as well. The brothers were quarantined to their chambers, though Faramir was moved into his brother’s room for companionship for it would be at least a week before either would be allowed from their sickbeds. He curled up protectively under his blankets in silence. Boromir, however, was loud and defiant, insisting that a petty skin rash was no obstacle to his stamina and if they would only consent for him to leave his bed he would be armored, armed, and horseback exactly as he had planned. Perhaps his illness was further progressed or perhaps he was simply younger and weaker but Faramir could scarcely imagine exhausting the energy to make such a protest, let alone follow through. However, Boromir’s indignation seemed to hearten Denethor, ever wary of the slightest frailty in his sons after his wife’s death.

Otherwise, one would have thought the Great Plague had come again to Gondor at the distress of the Steward as he summoned the citadel’s most eminent healers to attend to his sons, including the Warden of the Houses of Healing himself. Denethor was convinced it was the work of powers to the East, an insidious assault meant for the Steward personally. He had foreseen it, he insisted; the Enemy would take from him his sons to devastate him, and so that even the line of Gondor’s Stewards would be broken.

The Warden assured the Steward that it was a common childhood illness, easily endured, and after enduring it once the afflicted would never have to endure it again. Denethor balked at this placation he clearly considered a falsehood, evidenced by the fact that _he_ had never had the pox as a boy-- but this only alarmed the Warden and his attendants swiftly whisked him away, for it would not do to have the Steward laid up with pox as well.

Despite the Warden’s conciliations that the disease was benign, every few hours the brothers were subjected to some treatment or another: a leeching; a poultice of herbs laid upon their foreheads to quench fever; bitter potions that seemed to operate by the same function as alcohol (Faramir suspected a large portion of them likely _was_ alcohol), by simply numbing their senses and making them more apt to sleep. 

Boromir frequently protested that the treatment was worse than the affliction. “I feel _less_ apt to recover once he has ‘treated’ me!” he moaned to Faramir after the warden had finished another round of blood-letting and left them for the night only when they had each drained a cup of a sour tisane.

“Soon enough we’ll have no more blood to let,” Faramir muttered with his face flat in his pillow, dizzy from the bloodloss and hoping for the sweet release of sleep. “Do you suppose we’ll be cured then?”

It was surely not necessary they be constantly attended to-- Faramir frequently wished their attendants would leave the two of them alone to rest!-- but the Warden sat watch over them as meticulously if their bedchambers were the Houses of Healing in the wake of battle, and when he took his rest or reported to the Steward one of the women stood by instead. She spoke not on the Shadow, but sang rhymes to keep her herb-lore straight and treated their ailments with attentive tenderness, daubing their scabs with dark vinegar and honey to soothe them rather than simply scolding their hands away. She steeped a sachet of oat porridge in a bath for them to soak in, and while both brothers scoffed at the absurdity of it each had to admit that their skin was soothed and afterward they slept the best they had since the rash appeared. 

Within two weeks the boys had recovered. Boromir tried to steal from his chambers earlier than Faramir did-- and discovered immediately that a large part of their attendants’ constantly watchfulness was to prevent him thus. However, finally on a morning when both woke early and alert, bedclothes littered with discarded scabs but their own skins smooth and unblemished, the Warden deemed them cured and they were free to roam as they liked once more as servants came to boil the bedding.

Their first duty, however, was to pay visit to Denethor, who had since been kept far from his sons’ quarantine to spare his own health. Boromir went swiftly to his father, throwing his arms out to embrace him before beginning to bluster about the overly-scrupulous care of the Warden that he considered an offense to his own strength and resilience. But in the instant before Denethor smiled with great relief upon his recovered son, Faramir saw a flicker of the mood that had preceded it when he was alone in thought. Perhaps he was especially fatigued from the stress of his sons’ illness or Faramir’s own convalescence made him more attentive to fragility, but he had never before noted such frailty and despair in his father. He had not seen the deep creases taking root at the corners of his eyes and downturned mouth, the dullness in his hair that foreshadowed the birth of grey, the way he relied upon his staff while keeping his back straight so that no one would suspect he needed it for anything other than evidence of his position. He had not paid heed to the groove in his brow and the pauses in his speech as dark thoughts passed ponderous and unspoken through his mind.

Denethor had a knack for seeing into men’s hearts and minds, having often looked deep into Faramir himself and hit upon the very thing to provoke him, but Faramir nonetheless felt strange taking such intimate account of him in turn, reading that beneath his father’s curated air of calm steadfastness and ancient pride lurked deep melancholy. Perhaps it was the lingering grief he still bore for his lost wife, though Finduilas had been dead for longer than half Faramir’s own life by now. Perhaps it was the sobering realization that as the prime of his youth was passing, mortality and the steady weakening of the body and spirit was pressing upon him ever more heavily by the day. Perhaps it spoke of how in his years he had only seen Gondor day by day loosen her hold against the East, and when he considered the course of their fate he could only see a slow spiral towards devastation that weighed upon him in irrepressible anguish, a needling fear that he lived in an age of decline and no matter his power or the efforts of those who served him, what had begun to decay could not be renewed. 

Faramir was sensitive to to his father's mood, for he recognized it. He held few vivid memories of his mother, but he carried a deep impression of her gentleness-- and her melancholy. She longed for her home by the sea, clear air and bright skies untormented by the brimstone and shadow imminently to the East of the walled city. Her quietly suppressed anguish had gradually weakened her until she was taken by a succession of illness that would have been easily borne by one with a stronger constitution. Ultimately it had been her despair that had killed her. Perhaps it was not the Shadow’s assault on his sons’s health, but his own mind, that Denethor ought to fear most.

Thanks to Gondor’s healers both brothers recovered fully and Faramir bore as lasting scars only a smattering of depressions along his hairline from the pox he had popped the first morning. But as he considered his father’s mood, he knew there were some things perhaps only the returned king could address-- if even then.


	4. Beregond

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Faramir feels unfit for soldiery and Beregond for healing the inevitable wounds.

_War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”_

***

Three days shy of sixteen year old Faramir held his wounded hand aloft, clutching it forcefully in the other to keep the injury closed. He breathed in measured bursts through gritted teeth, trying to slow the terrified throbbing in his veins that worked against him.

“At least you know it’s an excellent sharp sword, then,” Beregond replied with sheepish irreverence, turning around from the herbmaster's table with the bandage prepared.

Faramir was due to receive the sword on his birthday in acknowledgement of his new adulthood. He was no prince so there need be no great ceremony to it, but it was nevertheless necessary for the Steward to acknowledge that his sons had taken up arms to Gondor’s defense as soon as they came of age and into their designated titles. In ages past a boy was not considered man until he had lived a full score of years, but as the lifespan of men shortened and practical necessity demanded more able soldiers, in the current age once a boy was physically grown it was frivolous waste to keep him coddled in figurative childhood.

Faramir hardly felt the man he was expected to be in only days’ time. Boromir had seemed very adult to him when he was sixteen, especially since he had been pleading with their father to let him join the soldiers when he was still very much a boy. When he had finally ridden out armed and armored on his birthday he had looked the very picture of a perfect soldier of Gondor. However, Faramir still felt like a child in play-dress when he wore his own armor, still thin and smooth-cheeked in contrast Boromir’s broad shoulders and burgeoning beard at sixteen. His voice was still soft and reedy and did not boom with the authority of a captain. He was no more ready for battle in spirit than he had ever been, even if those around him assured him he was ready in skill.

The only bright side he could see to adulthood would be the opportunity to travel-- even if for military purposes-- and see fantastic sites beyond the city walls and meet interesting people, perhaps even the secretive Elves that had grown sparser and sparser in the East but one still heard of the occasional encounter on their way as they wandered towards the Sea. 

Furthermore, he would be removed from Minas Tirith where tensions with his father had only worsened as Boromir spent more time away from home, providing no distraction to Denethor’s scrutiny of his second son. Although Faramir strived never to openly defy his father’s commands, Denethor still turned a critical eye on so much he did: his continued preference for reading and arts during his leisure rather than the martial sports his brother preferred, his habit of daydreaming when he ought to be listening, his tendency to prattle on about subjects he found interesting regardless of whether those attending to him shared his interest. Denethor never forbade him to speak his mind and listened patiently when he did, but he did not disguise his frowns when his son checked his countenance for approval. Nor did he dictate for his sons their companions-- and indeed both brothers were naturally well-loved by most-- but openly scoffed often at some of Faramir’s more offbeat acquaintances: gruff tradesmen from beyond Minas Tirith (who brought the best stories from abroad), stray cats and dogs (who were the most affectionate), and the traveling wizard Denethor found irritating and meddlesome each time he appeared at the gates but from which Faramir sought all sorts of obscure wisdom that only he seemed to know. 

Beregond, too, was one such companion, with no bloodline to recommend him as a friend to the son of a ruling steward-- but Faramir saw in him a loyal, sincere, and pleasant soul. For all the fault Denethor found in Faramir, Beregond saw the opposite. His family was relatively new to the city, having emigrated from the White Mountains when he was a child, and he was eagerly impressed with everything: the high walls of the city, the great armies training in the plains, the technology of their cisterns and cellars dug into the mountain--and with Faramir himself. Sometimes his effusive attention embarrassed Faramir a little, but he couldn’t help but like him for it.

Anticipating his friend’s enthusiasm, when he had learned that his present had been complete Faramir had stolen them into the forge for a peek. Beregond, who preferred to follow the rules when he knew them, had been nervous at the prospect of sneaking but was comforted by Faramir’s implicit permission-- even if Faramir hadn’t exactly asked for permission himself. Yet he figured there was no harm in seeking his own sword early in the morning before the smith heated his fires.

Beregond saw it his eyes went wide and he cooed over it as if it were some great elvish blade of legend. It was certainly no such thing, though it was of the finest craftsmanship of modern Gondor-- for it would not do for a young man marked to lead companies to lead them with inferior weaponry-- and it was beautiful, Faramir supposed, for a sword. The import of it struck him more with melancholy than awe, for he knew that once this weapon were bestowed upon him it would seldom leave his side as he was called upon to stand in perpetual readiness for his city’s defense. Even safe within the citadel his father still bore arms beneath his robes of office. “It _is_ finely made, but it is also a pity we live in a time where coming of age is marked by a man’s capacity for destruction,” he added with a sigh.

“Only his _capacity_ ,” said Beregond sagely. “You will not wield it recklessly, but only when necessary.” 

However, his wisdom swiftly melted back into childlike enthusiasm as he turned to his friend with zeal. “May I—?” he began, but the words fell dry on his tongue as if mid-breath he realized the audacity of what he asked the Steward’s son.

Faramir didn’t mind; the sword would never find such enthusiasm in his own hands. No sooner had he nodded than Beregond had delicately taken the sword from where it was hung-- and then, clearly with no pretensions of his _own_ aversion to recklessness, swung it round so it made an audible slice through the air. Beregond had control of his movements but Faramir hopped back with a nervous giggle, musing on the strange fact that some people, like his brother, did find such honest enjoyment in instruments of death. With the sword as a prop Beregond began make impressions of famous figures and paraphrased bits of lore he had learned from Faramir, prompting hearty laughs from his companion.

However, Beregond’s antics did not cause a problem; the problem was caused when Beregond went to to return the sword to its place on the rack. It slipped and began to fall against the others hung besides it, beginning a din of perilous clatter. Fearful it would knock all of the swordsmith’s work to the ground and dull the blades, in pure instinct Faramir leapt to grab it-- trying to seize the blade of a falling sword being possibly the most foolish thing he had ever done. 

He did not feel anything at first, but looked down at the blade embedded in his hand with puzzlement-- and then saw the blood rushing forward. The sword clattered to the floor, spattering blood, and Faramir was faced with a gaping slit of open skin cut practically to the bones of his palm. Indeed the swordsmith had done excellent work. He seized his hand in his other hand as if he could simply hold the wound shut, feeling his veins throbbing out blood all the faster in his terror.

The boys met eyes and neither needed to speak aloud what they were both thinking; the first thing a healer would do would send report to Denethor that his son had been injured. Faramir was deathly pale, but Beregond was a nauseous green with terror; could he be flogged for his part in maiming the Steward’s son? Imprisoned? Exiled? Put to death? 

Faramir took in a deep and shuddering breath. “In my chambers I have a book on the old healing of Westernesse in a language I have studied a little . . . “

“ _I_ have not studied it!” Beregond protested.

“I will read it to you, if you will fetch it and hold it for me-- swiftly!” He continued to hold his bleeding hand as he shook it for emphasis. “I will meet you in the herbmaster’s stores; he is certain to have what we need.” With any luck the herbmaster rose no earlier than the smiths.

When Beregond found him with the proper volume he was so agitated his hands could barely turn the pages for him, but between Faramir’s translation and what he had seen so far of the healer’s they determined it was necessary to wash the wound and hold it aloft so that less blood could find its way out.

“Next it reads . . . oh. ‘Heat a pot of water and disperse in it the healing plant.’”

“’The healing plant?’ Which one is ‘the healing plant?’”

“I don’t know. When the book was written they must not have had another name for it; they must have simply known what ‘the healing plant’ was.”

Beregond pursed his lips tightly at the failures of translation but he would not accept doom just yet. “Well, which one of these heals?” He gestured to the herbmaster's copious sores of dried herbs in jars and potted plants.

“Surely a lot of them?” said Faramir with a pained but hopeful grimace.

“We shall try as many as we can, then,” Beregond replied.

Faramir felt his raised hand going numb as Beregond quickly accumulated and mashed his hodgepodge assortment of ingredients with a mortar and pestle, then shuddered deeply as he laid them upon his wound. He held his hand painstakingly still as Beregond wound a length of cloth around it, pressing the severed skin together with the poultice firmly on top. No blood came through for a reasonable period of time, so with the sun now visibly rising, the boys grimly departed for their morning duties.

With the wound closed, Faramir’s adrenaline kept him going for a while. However, while he expected it to hurt as it healed, he did not anticipate the skin around the wound to grow bright red, hot, and itchy by the following evening. Embarrassed by the sight of it he kept it hidden under gauntlets or beneath his sleeves, even in private. However, when the bandage began to rupture with a foul-smelling pus, there was no hiding it anymore. His stiff, ballooning fingers could no longer grip anything from pen to fork to sword and throbbed with a stabbing pain so dire he could think on little else.

He was running hot with all-over fever when he finally sought out the herbmaster he ought to have sought in the first place, who did not wait for the Steward before scolding Faramir himself for breaking into his stores without proper training. He extracted details on the cause of the wound as he simultaneously extracted the bandage. Faramir amended his story to exclude Beregond, painting himself as utterly hapless in the process.

Denethor arrived just as the herbmaster was poking through the contents of the bandage, trying to determine if it included anything that might have actively poisoned him before he began his treatment. He named them as he pulled them out one by one. “Nettles . . . pennyroyal . . . and Westman's weed?” He wrinkled his nose in puzzlement as Faramir sighed quietly to himself at Beregond’s overzealousness.

So Faramir had to endure the agony of having Beregond’s monstrous poultice pulled away from his half-healed, half-infected flesh in addition to the dreaded tongue-lashing from both the herbmaster and his father on foolishness and irresponsibility, which might have ended with his gift rescinded had they lived in an age where such a punishment could have been afforded. Having been taught how handle a blade safely practically from the time he could walk, Faramir felt more childish than ever. 

After the healer had sewn him up according to his own wisdom, Faramir was given a few days to recuperate before he received his sword as planned and began training with it in bandaged hand. When the dressing was removed, he had a thick, raised scar of purple and white. Beregond grimaced in pity every time he caught sight of it.

“You did better with the _cutting_ than the sewing,” Faramir assured him gently. “I suspect you’ll simply make a better soldier than a healer.”


	5. Faramir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which life as a soldier is brutal and Faramir is barely equipped to handle the damage war does to his body.

Twenty-eight year old Faramir tenderly pulled the glove from his numb and aching hand, trying his hardest not to faint at the sickening sight of his own bent forearm. He heard the sharp suck of breath through gritted teeth emitted from Damrod but stilled his own breathing, not wanting to spook his comrade more than he already was in the wake of battle. The damage was done, and all that could be done was to address it as calmly as possible.

There were brief moments, Faramir supposed, when life as a Ranger of Ithilien was pleasant. They were surrounded by the beauty of ancient forest, grassy knolls, magnificent falls, the constant sweet smells of flora and herbs. Their outpost at Henneth Annûn was comfortable and safe, too hidden for any accidental encounters to catch them off guard, and in the midst of a healthy wood they ate more heartily than those in Minas Tirith. Although he missed Boromir terribly in the months between reports and when his forces were called to bolster his command at Osgiliath, his Rangers had become near to brothers to him, sharing their tales, joys and fears around their nightly meals.

Yet no beauty, comfort, or brotherhood could change the purpose in their post, which was not only to defend the way into Gondor but also to steal as far across the Anduin as they dared and subdue forces of the Enemy before they might pose threat to their country. At times Faramir enjoyed the stimulation of strategy, using his mind as well as weapons to conceive the best possible routes and tactics to waylay what forces would harm Gondor-- but the pre-emptive strikes, having to kill without the threat of being killed imminently upon him, filled him with a grim bitterness. His father’s missives advised they take no risks, slaying on sight all who wandered into Ithilien and could not readily be identified as allies, but far from Denethor’s disapproving gaze in the halls of the citadel and emboldened by experience in the stealth tactics that were the Rangers’ expertise, Faramir felt justified in discerning for himself the threats from the innocent before they attacked. After all, the woods of Ithilien were thick with animals of no danger to Gondor that need not be recklessly slain, and he lived in dread that they might one day fell an innocent traveler or even a wandering Elf. Through these means he spared many lives, including those of his own company, and his men praised his prowess and leadership-- but he felt abashed by their accolades, knowing he was driven more by reticence to fight than the valiant fearlessness and resolve so admired in Boromir. 

Despite his conservative approach, death was frequent enough. He knew that the men he killed were commanded by a master whose punishments for desertion and cowardice would be far worse than death by the Rangers of Ithilien, so restless in the dark after ambushes he soothed himself to sleep with assurance that he had given them a more merciful death than they might have had-- yet woke hours later in cold sweat with the memory of their terrified and dying eyes.

This they had done for years now and it had never gotten easier, not for the least because they did it alone, despite the numbers of those serving the Enemy growing. Had the Eldar become so scarce, so set on their haven in the West as to ignore the encroaching darkness to the East? Where were the Dúnedain, their Northern brothers of fallen Númenor? Even the riders of Rohan were scarce to their aid, though he wondered if his father’s pride made him reticent to ask for as much as they truly needed. Boromir had subverted their exhausted frustration into a fierce, defensive pride that Men, Men of Gondor alone, stood against the growing Enemy as the proven heroes of the day. Faramir, however, found no comfort in impractical assurances of nobility and wished with all of his heart that they were not alone in this fight, so that it could be finally be ended.

Yet he carried on with his duty despite all exhaustion and dismay. In childhood he had learned shame for favoring books, preferring the quietude of study to the clash and clatter of swords, and wishing for a life and duties other than what had been delegated to him by birth-- shame that it was not his chief desire to grow into a Captain and wield sword to take lives-- but he knew now what he merely favored, preferred, wished for, or desired was utterly irrelevant. It did not matter that he kept himself alert on watch by muttering memorized passages of prose to himself for want of a book-- he had not held a tome in hand since his last personal report to his father’s halls some months ago-- or that his favorite part of the day was the occasional round of song and tale told around the night fire, so long as he kept his post and heeded his directives regardless. He dreaded, feared, _hated_ every morning he rose before dawn to the eerie red light to the East, every time he donned his green hood and fixed his bow to his back, every time he drew his sword or bow against another living soul-- but he rose every morning, donned his hood, and slayed those he was bid to keep his men alive, to protect the borders of Gondor, and to keep the Enemy at bay.

He also did as he needed to keep his men’s spirits high. Damrod and Mablung had seen him crash down from the tall pine and noted the unnatural angle of his forearm as he lay still for a moment to catch his winded breath before rising and drawing his sword with the undamaged hand to join them against the soldiers on foot. He held the ruined limb against his chest with aid of his baldric as adrenaline surged him through the pain. When the battle was done, disguising the pain just as he constantly hid his reticence to fight, he retired beneath a tree away from the carnage. He was quiet about it, giving a simple sign to Damrod to assist him so as not to call attention to his wound and demoralize his company further as they finished the gruesome task of assuring that all of the fallen enemy soldiers were truly dead. Damrod helped him attain the necessary materials for splinting the bone, including a small cask of hard, bitter liquor. 

Beneath Faramir’s gloves his sword-gash on his hand was no longer distinctly noticeable amongst the numerous other scars and cuts he now bore after several years serving with the Rangers. It was a rare occasion one of his hands was not bound up beneath his bracers from some scrape or tear in the skin. Bandaged, too, were broken blisters and sores inside his boots. Worst to endure were the occasional broken rib, with nothing to bandage, but breastplates held things in place-- and ale soothed the pain-- well enough to carry on. It was not that the Captain of the Rangers of Ithilien was particularly accident-prone these days— though as Captain he did assume the greatest risks to spare his men, as he had when he had climbed high in the trees to scout the approaching Southrons to fell their captain first with an arrow from his perch, and fallen avoiding his lieutenant’s returned fire-- but theirs was a perilous watch and every one of his company was similarly battered and bruised. Those who could no longer fight were returned to the city-- when they were not buried in the ground-- but an otherwise whole and hale soldier was no less for a few superficial wounds. At times it felt that serving in the front lines against the Enemy was a death-sentence in slow motion, an assault of the growing Eastern darkness upon their mortal forms, but the more hardily their bodies could bear the battering the longer the White City would continue to stand.

At least Gondor retained enough of the old wisdom and herb lore of Númenor to be in the habit of sterilizing their wounds and all water, knife, and dressing that touched them. When bands of Rohirrim passed through their lands they were dispirited to see the toll that infection and necrosis had taken on many of them. Faramir had some time ago lent aid to a young rider whose foot had been amputated but his leg still gangrenous; the Captain had helped cut away the rotting flesh, washed the wound, and re-dressed it with herbs and clean bandages, but his hands bore no kingly gifts and the lad had died the following morning.

Faramir had long become reticent to burden others with the responsibility of his healing, but he could not leverage his arm by himself so Damrod held his arm steady as he took a bolstering breath, gritted his teeth, and snapped the bone back into place. As Damrod diligently wrapped the limb to the splint Faramir seized the cask and threw back his head, downing more than double the alcohol that had made him vomit as a child simply to take the edge off the grating pain so he wouldn’t vomit now. 

Although he could feel that the bone was in place now for proper healing, the pain would last a while longer yet, throbbing to the core of his skull. Faramir had never expected to be king and never wanted to be, but at times like these he wished his were the hands of a healer.


	6. Aragorn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the healer-king finally arrives.

Thirty-five year old Faramir lay dying-- or at least he was reasonably certain he was dying, if _certainty_ were even possible with his mind slipping so readily between dreaming and at best half-awake.

The last he recalled of waking life-- if the Shadow had not tampered the memory, forming it out of the ashes of his fears-- was the charge of Dol Amroth upon the field where Faramir might have been slain if they had arrived but a moment too late. Prince Imrahil had chased the Southron champion from his sure kill, away from where Faramir lay sprawled and paralyzed by the poison of an incoming dart. He dismounted to help him to his feet—but ended up carrying him instead. 

Faramir was well-practiced in mastering pain, slowing his breathing and focusing his mind to overcome it; however, as his uncle lifted him his body shuddered as if possessed by another force, he could not move his own limbs at will, and worst he found he could not even speak. In voiceless panic he struggled to retake his own body for his own but it was no longer apt to his will, lost to involuntary throes of sheer animal panic at the door of mortality. Imrahil’s lips pursed in grim understanding and as he lifted Faramir onto his horse like a child or one infirm and he did not voice any assuring platitudes he did not believe. Both were seasoned soldiers and had seen the way that strong men lost their faculties on the brink of death, spilling their bodily essences, falling mute, or dropping into unconsciousness before the inextricable grip of death took hold. Faramir’s vision blurred at the edges as he swayed perilously with every stride of their mount, completely lost to his own sense of balance. Imrahil’s arms were all that kept him upright.

And then he succumbed to dreaming.

Faramir had been prone to dreams of import since he was a child-- one “skill” of his that had ever exceeded Boromir’s, though he cursed it when it was his dream that had sent Boromir to his doom-- but the poison that eased through his veins gave them a dark, shadowy quality he did not know that affirmed dread prophecies his father had foreseen in his long sight from the White Tower. The little Halflings he had sent with his blessing upon the dark paths eastward, lost in the shadows beyond the Black Gate, captured and tormented by the Enemy’s slaves beyond all hope. The faceless king with his new-forged sword riding towards Gondor but waylaid by wargs, wraiths, corsairs, armies of ghosts. Rohan delayed to Gondor’s aid. Minas Tirith under assault, burning and crumbling to ashes. The world lost to shadow.

His sense of the living world came and went. When scent was present he caught whiffs of his own infected wound and the foulness of a hard-worked body unwashed-- and, strangely, kindling oil? His mind did not always possess his fevered body, floating away into the horrors of dreams, to return to it was as hell as any vision of the world destroyed, all fire and pain as he lay silent and motionless within his suffering.

There was only one thing he was certain of in both dreams and waking: that Boromir was dead. For even if he could not call forth the memory of his watery funeral carriage-- a memory his dreams plagued him with steadily, not only his corpse adrift but every possible version of his death he had imagined at the Halflings’ explanation, replayed as if he had witnessed it-- he could _feel_ his absence, a terrible hollowness in his soul.

However, as the dreams spiraled his consciousness into deeper darkness he began to feel a similar emptiness in place of his father, too, and locked within his mind he could not confirm whether it was a trick of fear or dark tidings from the world outside. He could remember-- or _thought_ he could remember-- the mad despair filtering through his father’s eyes after the death of Boromir, his bereavement sharped into darts of disdain as poisonous as the Southron’s against his remaining son, twisting Faramir’s own grief against him to send him without blessing but only ultimatum into the venture in Osgiliath that it was obvious the Steward himself believed to fruitless. From the shadows and his own fears of his father’s mood came terrible dreams of Denethor surrendered to utter madness: bidding the last bastions of Gondor’s defense flee their posts, calling for his own untimely death-- the father who had taught him duty abandoning his in the end, leaving the city to its utter ruin.

But then did he only imagine in the wavering haze of his fever-memories the somber attendance at his sickbed, weeping with broken pride and regret, though he could not wake to acknowledge him? And once, he thought, he did break through to speak with solid voice, and for a moment felt strong hands lifted from bedding? But could those arms have been his father’s; did his father’s arms yet yield such strength?-- and after he was moved he was not roused again, lost to dreams of death and fire. He did not know if he simply dreamt too deep to sense him or if Denethor had indeed been lost-- or how. 

As the Shadow pressed harder upon him he grew weary even of dreaming. If the dreams spoke true and all his family were dead, his city laid to waste, the Ring in the hands of the Enemy . . . then what was to be gained in fighting for his life? Surely there was no relief from his torment aside from the merciful snuff of death. He longed to drift away to where his brother's soul had departed, behind the world of the living, where he might know nothing but at least then would not know the pain of his body and the devastation of grief. The longer he remained in the darkness he desired to simply breathe it in and let it consume him, take him, free him.

“Faramir.”

He could not place how long he been lost to the world when a calm and assuring voice cut through the darkening haze of his mind, a singular point of reality in the dream-hell he now all but entirely inhabited. It tugged at him now towards the world of living, the world of solid shapes and light-- and his own physical body, still wracked with fever and pain.

At first he resisted, for the Shadow’s grip was strong, and he did not wish to inhabit the destroyed body he had been left with. Death would be sweeter, death would release him; he did not wish to exist, broken, in the broken world he had foreseen overtaken by flames and shadow.

“Faramir.”

The voice was clearer this time and it was firm and would not be denied; yet it was also gentle and assuring-- a voice of faith and certainty, no figment of his fever-dream. Surely no voice belonged to the Enemy or a world he had enslaved. His consciousness chased it up through the levels of his sleep as if he chased one calling through the winding walls of a labyrinth. 

He began to become aware of the sounds in the world from which the voice called, a steady bustle that spoke not of terror and death as he had feared, but of hopeful productivity. A sweet scent overtook him, nothing close to death or infection, but which reminded him of bright childhood days playing with Boromir when the wind was out of the West, or calm mornings in Ithilien in which the war had seemed far away-- moments in which there had been hope and peace.

“Faramir.”

The voice belonged to a presence just before him, if he would only open his eyes. Every muscle of his body seized up in anticipation of the pain and sheer overstimulation that would accompany the return to consciousness. He heaved in bolstering breath, expecting it to burn and tear his throat from the inside out-- but instead came in smooth and sweet, as if healing his lungs from the inside. He coughed in surprise, expecting the dry rasp he could barely manage but found his phlegm and saliva restored, gloriously clear and wet. His body felt new-made, all pain and weariness of the years of his life and suffering washed away, as if he had been reborn rather than merely woken from near-death.

Bright and clear his eyes opened fully for the first since he had collapsed in Imrahil’s arms. He was comfortable on a bed, washed clean, encircled by survivors whose voices he recognized-- the herbmaster and his attendants, Beregond and his son-- all except for one. But blinking in even the dim light he was no longer accustomed to, before he could make out the stern war-worn face and noble grey eyes, he could feel gentle, capable hands upon his chest and brow and knew exactly whose hands they were.

“My lord, you called me. I come. What does the king command?”


	7. Epilogue: Éowyn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Faramir recognizes the healer within himself.

Since Faramir had woken from his terrible coma of fever and fire he nevertheless spent many hours sleeping, and dreamt often and deeply as he recovered-- but his dreams were now of water rather than fire, of a great wave that overtook the city and shrouded it in impenetrable darkness. They disturbed and frightened him, reminding him of the doom of Númenor and wondering, as the king and his grey company rode East, if they had been cast from burning only into drowning without mercy or relief.

During his waking hours he often took to the gardens of the Houses of Healing, advised by the warden to keep close to his sickbed although he desired the peace of greenery. Buds were scarce on the chill, cloudy final days of winter, but nevertheless he had clear view of the mountains and sky, often looking East to where hope had ridden.

He thought little on the effect of his solitude until it was broken, and he was relieved by the presence of the warden and the companion he brought to him: Éowyn of Rohan, who too desired to wander from her bed and take view to the East. He was struck by the lady’s beauty incomparable to any he had ever seen, compelling him in its contradictions of delicacy and strength, suffering and resolve, pity and pride.

“I see our savior from the North has made clean work of your injury, fair lady,” he noted on their second meeting, when the sling that had been made for her by the women of the Houses of Healing had been changed for another that gave her more freedom of movement.

“Indeed he has,” she agreed, though there was stilted delicacy to her words and Faramir immediately recognized the implication. Rumor had it the would-be king was betrothed to a famed lady of Elvish nobility, kin to Lord Elrond of Rivendell himself, and Éowyn could not have strayed him. Nevertheless, Faramir pitied her wounded heart-- though he also felt guilty relief to know that he need not be rival to his new king in this regard.

Her despair had been clear to him from the first, but once she had aired her simple complaints of being bedridden and unable to look to the East, when he asked her of it he expected to hear of Aragorn-- if she were willing to speak on him, for the White Lady would be silent when she willed and would not be compelled to answer what she disliked to say. He did not expect her dark wish for death. However, though she carefully dressed it in vibrant colors of battle-glory and duty to her people he pitied her-- but also understood, remembering his own feverish nightmares as the Shadow consumed him from the inside.

They did not always speak on such solemn things. He learned from the Halfling that had ridden with her about her past before she had come with her uncle’s army to the city, and asked her questions about her life and loves that might rekindle the flame of survival in her faltering heart. When she spoke in passionate bursts of her home in Rohan and riding with the Rohirrim on the Pelennor she reminded him fondly of Boromir, who was bold and accustomed to the ways of war, who feared no man or monster and loved his people with a fierceness that transcended even his love of life. However, in her long moments of thoughtful silence she reminded him more of his mother and her quiet sorrow, who even as she did all for the love of her own felt trapped by the life she had been given. And yet she also reminded him of his father, whose pride was too great to fall passive even in doom and despair, and would seize his life in his own hands, even for bitter ends, and not wait idly for the passage of fate. 

With this in mind he was grateful for the high walls of the house and the diligent attendance of the healers that kept her safe and watched, even if Éowyn was not, for he had already lost too many he loved— his mother, whose anguish in his innocent youth had been unable to impact; his father, whose stubbornness and despair had defied all reason and could not be contained when Faramir was lost to the world of the living; and Boromir, who had succumbed to a dark temptation he had never known to practice against while Faramir waited impotent in Gondor at his father’s command-- and he knew, with all the more certainty since he had confessed to her his admiration of her beauty upon their first meeting, that he loved her, even after only days.

She looked Eastward with him, yet even the prospect of victory did not seem to comfort her. As the cold, grey days rolled towards a spring that seemed as if it would never arrive, a hope that would not come to pass, they continued to walk in the gardens, inspecting the tiny crocus blossoms that toiled to come to bloom. Éowyn was gentle with them even as the words upon her chilled lips were bitter. “I have been told I am a hero of war, but now is it my fate to return dutifully to the hearth and loom, to wife and bear child, to die an old crone or a wailing mother upon an enemy’s sword as he comes upon me in my home unarmed and unarmored? If that is the reward for what I have done, I would sooner rest beside my uncle in his tomb.” 

She spoke with conviction as she lifted her chin with proud defiance of her presumed fate, but as soon as she met his eyes dropped them sharply with regret for her words, for Denethor’s attempt to bring Faramir alongside him into the hallows was known to both of them. 

“Éowyn, you have ridden under the shadow, as have I, and it has given you a grievous wound. It oppresses you with despair, for that is its power, and it would kill you if it can. But you have been spared death thus far and given to the hands of healing,” he assured her. Had he not woken himself from the grip of death, the consuming despair that might have killed him as it had his father? “The poison clears from your veins day by day. You must have faith that this dread and despair will not haunt you forever.”

“You speak as if I have only been afflicted since Witch-King struck me,” she replied. “But was it not wrought upon me the first time my mother called me back from play at wooden swords to help her mend and cook, while my brother carried on? When first Éomer rode abroad as I waited in the house, bound to a loom or cooking fire? While the Rohirrim defended our lands as I remained in the suffocating shadow of my uncle’s sickbed? The vile whisperings of Wormtongue, the pierce of the poisoned blade . . . these have injured me, but they did not build my cage.” Then her lips tightened and her eyes flickered up to his with a flash of accusation, thinking on all the many men who had dismissed her for these grievances, drowning her in platitudes of the nobility of steadfast womanhood-- men whom she had loved, men whom had been her own kin, and yet ever misunderstood her. “Or do you think my complaints petty and unnatural for my sex?”

“I do not,” Faramir replied in all earnestness, recalling deeply the shame he had been made to feel in his youth for his reticence for soldiery and knowing the claustrophobic agony of being trapped by duty despite all stirrings of his heart to the contrary. “How could one not despair of life made into a cage? I do not claim to know the certain features of your own confines, lady, but though I was born to different duties than yourself, I too know the torment of living against all that I have desired in obligation to my station, and I have witnessed its toll upon the strength and resolve of men. Such was also the means by which my mother weakened before she died.

“We have given up much of ourselves in these years of war, and a moment of glory followed by the sweet sleep of death may seem a noble release. But we stand upon the brink of a new age, and we do not yet know what it shall bring. So should I wish to die with an age that brought me little happiness-- or live to see that the new might be better?”

Éowyn bit her lip as if to stem her instinct to fire back that he did _not_ know, and that his comfort was but a dismissal to her anguish. But Faramir could see that she turned over his words in her mind, thinking of all that he had lost and yet retained the hope of something better.

He feared that she might not seek his company the following day, but his heart gladdened when she did. This time her thoughts were turned to Aragorn as they stood on the high wall gazing East, wrapped in Finduilas’s mantle Faramir had brought for her. There they stood when there was a great rumble through the earth and a blast of wind, and they both for a moment feared that the end had come-- until the sun broke over the country so that the city walls shone pure white and the distant river glinted silver, and Faramir finally understood his dream: in the wake of fire the quench of the deluge, all trace of war washed away.

With the new promise of life returned duty to the living, and being healed necessity was that Faramir busy himself with the preparations for the return of the triumphant king-- although it pained him to look upon the wreckage of his father’s study and the White Tower in his final days of life, signifying the loss he had foreseen and been informed of as he convalesced in the Houses of Healing (and had apparently witnessed, but not remembered) and the true significance of the ending of the Stewardship.

He did not see Éowyn, who despite the joyous song of victory and the blossoming of green in the spring of the city remained somber and ill, yet tended by the warden of the Houses of Healing. Finally, despite all caution from the councilors that the erstwhile steward was far too busy to attend to this malingerer whose physical form was mended, he brought the lady directly to Faramir.

It was clear she was yet as melancholy as the day he had first seen her, and his heart troubled to think that even as the fortress of the Enemy had crumbled and the city sent forces to meet the triumphant victors in the field, even as her arm had been released from its sling, she remained lost in her despair. However, by now Faramir knew her well enough to see there was something unspoken agitating her mind, which upon release might relieve her. But the proud lady would not speak it at first, and even as she chided him for riddles made him postulate the workings of her heart-- but he trusted what he saw within her and he was not ashamed of what he felt for her in turn, even if it were not returned.

Just as the great wave washed over fallen Westernesse in Faramir’s dreams, the death of the Shadow upon Éowyn came by water, tears washing her face even as she smiled in resolve to take the life she now desired, a life of healing and renewal after the terrible specter of battle and death. He tasted the seawater-sweet traces of her weeping upon her lips as they kissed with nary a thought to any who witnessed them.

They made their way down from the wall, hands still clasped. “Perhaps it is untrue to the memory of my father and brother,” Faramir mused, “but I am relieved to return the office to our approaching king and take leave of the city to somewhere of peace and greenery that my lady loves-- and grateful already for all he has done for my country as well as for me personally.” But he did not refer to himself and instead nodded to the lady’s pale arm, now free of its splint and all trace of the Witch-King’s scars.

Éowyn stopped on the stone stairs. "You fool," she chided him with the certain fond intimacy of a lover, eyes sparkling and lips unable to suppress a smile, "it is not only by the hands of the king that I have been healed.”

Her own hand, yet warm and soft beneath her sword-callouses like his own, remained secure in his as they walked together to the Houses of Healing and Faramir spoke to the warden that of all he had lost that he could not save, here was one that had-- who would live with him in contentment and bliss in the new peaceful world until the end of their days: “Here is the Lady Éowyn of Rohan, and now she is healed.”


End file.
